i first encountered a new york times writer when he was doing little blog about people dating, which everyone in the industry was looking at. -- cable ratings. did anybody know that he was 16 or 17? he came to the office for an interview and i said, are you old enough to do this? he said next year. need i mention nate silver, who has become a byword? he had expertise in an area that was filled with guesswork. it served journalism. he came in and fill this need

and i think by any terms, he is doing great. he is a household word. those are just two examples of people who were passionate and knowledgeable and found their way into an area that people were not following. it was extraordinarily, these are the people you should be looking to, not me. my path was weird and cannot be followed. >> let's open it up to questions from the audience. when you come to the microphone, please give us your name and where you go to school. if anyone would like to come up. here is our first inquire.

he is adjusting it. until someone gets the courage up, you mentioned nate silver. he offers the fascinating thesis that it is that talking heads on all the cable channels are the ones who are constantly predicting things that, believe it or not, have the worst prognostication records. >> he said that the amount of minutes you are on television are inversely proportionate to the accuracy of your predictions. >> i listen to your show every

sunday afternoon. i want to know, i saw on your web site that you went through an independent bookseller. i am wondering about the role of amazon in the book industry and how it is hurting it. >> actually, norton bought the book. they wanted it. i was delighted that they did. we were proceeding along very well. it is owned by time warner, and they came in and said by the way, we own all rights to it. we can do what we want with it without any input. it started as a graphic novel,

which i shifted to a nonfiction when i discovered i did not know how to plot any thing. if warner brothers just wanted to buy it and do anything they wanted with it, i would have done that. conclusions, so i just took the whole project and walked away. norton is an employee-owned house, but that was just serendipity. a>> you have done many shows on the decline of global media. -- of old media. i know you have tackled the

music industry. given the fact that you have grown up with the media, doesn't give you a sense of regret that so many of these empires are toppling, or does the expectation of new media, which cover extensively on your program, fill you with the sense that this is all for the good? >> in the book, i quote the lakes, great douglas adams. he says that any kind of technology that was around when you were born is right and natural. is in the natural order of things. anything that comes along and around the age of 35 is fascinating and exciting and brilliant. anything that comes along after that is best to civilization and is going to destroy humanity as we know it. i think i am very lucky in having the job that i do, because i don't have the leisure to be incredibly blessed doubt it for my childhood. that was a world that i was not part of an was unlikely to ever be a part of.

the kind of coverage that we get from anybody with a cell phone, all over the world, sullivan unreliable, is still astonishing and necessary. you brought up the arab spring. it brought up real-life coverage of hurricane sandy. it is everywhere we need to be, to paraphrase some advertisement or other. it is a great, wonderful new world. the big difference is that you as the news consumer have to do the work they did not have to do before. you have to choose your pension plan, your healthcare plan, paper or plastic. you have everything thrown in

your lap, and maybe most important is the information you choose to consume. you are what you eat. if you eat nothing but chocolate pudding your entire life, then you can venture out there and very your diet. it is all there. there are so many times when i have spoken in public forums and people will say, why are the media not covering x? how did you find out about that? it was on page 6, but they thought it should be on page one. the media you consume are not reflecting your priorities. they are run by people. if you go straight to google news, you can have an algorithm doing that search for you. i think you just have to swallow hard, do a lot, and

realize this is all up to you now. i am not startling for the world that was at all. >> that task of leaving it up to you can be kind of frightening. >> you have to find people you can trust. when you watch cbs or it read the new york times, those were your aggregators. it is not about "here is what i had for breakfast today." it is about "this person is incredible." they send me links from across

the media and show me stories that i would not otherwise know. i have to say that i have my own twitter feed. i am a bit bifurcated. on the media calligraphy, i read avidly but rarely contributed to. they are the best aggregators that i have encountered of media stuff. that is just one.

you find the people that you love and follow them, or website that you can subscribe to on twitter. to address another issue which is really critical, when you are talking about breaking out of your shell, in the parlance of our computer age, there's something called serendipity, which is accidental encounters with information that you would not. there are websites that are basically serendipity engines. they can connect you to stories that are fascinating, but you would never know. it is not impossible to find out this stuff. you just go there and you can create a live and rich array of information coming directly to you. you just have to build it. >> do you fear for the day when inevitably the new york times disappears? >> i don't think it is going to disappear. i really don't. i make this prediction before. i think that the new york times

will become a boutique item that rich people get. for instance, you subscribe to the sunday new york times because you love the feel of newsprint on your hands and you love the magazine, the book review, and so on. you have a ritual and you pay for it. and you pay a lot for it. you already pay a lot for the new york times. it is expensive. but ultimately, the paper will be for people who want paper, and the information will be on- line and available through the various pay walz they are creating. >> i am a freelance journalist. you were talking about abrogating and curating. i started off as a

writer/reporter. the thing that strikes me is that when you talk about the new york times, the one thing i found is that quality costs money. there is a lot of crap out there. >> tell me about it. [laughter] >> my question to give is, where is the money going to come from to finance quality journalism? it is a combination of the heavy stuff as well as up and coming stuff. but where is the money going to come from? >> it is a deep question, the question that everybody asks. the new york times has created a partial pay wall. it is actually doing pretty well now. old and barely perhaps the new york times and daily newspapers

in general, they used to be one-stop shops. you had your movie reviews. you had a whole bunch of sections that could be done elsewhere and you did not need to have the local paper do it. it could also argue, there is new york sensibility, new york movie reviewers could have a different perspective that would be different from the cincinnati movie reviewer, perhaps. if there were, which there probably are not. but ultimately, newspapers have been mulling over the idea of becoming nonprofit. the trouble is that in order to be a non-profit, you are really cannot make a profit. they are having trouble getting around this. like the l.a. times got a big foundation grant.

there will little bit of consternation in public radio circles about it. the point here is that the l.a. times can put its money in different subject. but they can get ford to come in and pay for local coverage or whatever public service coverage the money is going to be posturing, then it can put his money and other things. why are you not putting your money in the stuff that really matters? i think the foundations are understanding that these are valuable institutions and they need to be supported. partnerships, foundation grants, people talk about the project for public integrity in places

like that that are funded by foundations or private individuals that are very public spirited. then they go and partner with the new york times or the washington post or the new yorker to get that information out. it is my understanding that the new yorker does not pay for a lot of the articles, they just provide the space. they are not just handing off their space, but there is, good reporting that is coming through these partnerships. that is part of where the money will come from. it is true that ultimately, people will have to, once again, pay for content, and publishers always prefer when their readers or consumers pay with their eyeballs. they find it the advertisers easier to deal with than consumers who want this and

that. there have been magazines with hundreds of thousands of subscribers that have gone out of business because their ad rates have disappeared. their audiences would have paid more, but they thought it was too much of a headache. there is much to be done to educate the older generation of publishers to understand that they will have to engage on every level with their audiences in the next phase. >> my name is jeff roberts, former broadcast journalist. winston churchill famously said democracy is the worst possible form of government. i am curious what country you think might be doing a better job in disseminating news through the mass media where it is not as hysterical, not as pointed as our news coverage is.

does anybody do it better, or is this just the way it is in free society? i hope you don't say great britain. >> i think this is the way it is. if you go to europe, you will find that they did not seem to go through this golden age. the big newspapers there are not owned by parties, they are affiliated with parties in their ideology. the editorial page and the news pages will work together to report stories, where you are we have this great fire wall between the editorial pages and the news pages. i do think this is the worst possible media except for all the others.

>> so there is no place like home. >> i think danish media is probably fantastic. >> the german news media is not owned by the parties. the real difference is that their newspapers are family- owned, they are not publicly traded. even a family-owned newspaper still wants to make some money. the publisher wants to keep his family alive. i used to be skeptical about family-owned newspapers. >> it really depends on the

family. german newspapers are very much falling to the right wing, left wing, center cast. we know there will be orientations to those newspapers. most of our newspapers are pretty centrist. in terms of families, you have hearst and pulitzer, who built great dynasties but did not always do the best journalism. the family-owned papers were motivated differently, but they were not necessarily better. i am not speaking in favor of -- i worry about corporate owned media but as they don't care so much about the enterprise of journalism. the greatest opponent of

journalism today is rupert murdoch. he blocked the wall street journal, not to be rich. his papers are the tiniest part of his media empire. the wall street journal was unlike the post. some people said when he goes with his friends in the war room, now he does not just on the new york post, he owns the wall street journal. rupert murdoch is a good example of somebody who really cares about the bottom line. he was perfectly willing to make deals with tony blair. he tried to make deals with hillary clinton. to extract promises from blair on regulations, and and

newspapers have had a much bigger impact in great britain than they have here. his entertainment property, fox television, offered something the public wanted and did not get from basic television all those years ago. the simpsons, if anybody can remember when the simpson started, just created howls of anguish from the guardians of family and value people, who thought it was just a disaster. married with children? please. this is stuff that people wanted to consume, but it was not conservative stuff. for him in was about the bottom line for most of his properties.

family is no assurance of great journalism, but i do think it is and assurance that people care about the enterprise of producing content. >> you work for national public radio. >> just for the record, i worked for wnyc. produces this show. >> wnyc is a radio program. >> i encountered this fact with my generation of students that radio is simply not on the menu anymore as something that

anybody listens to work, regrettably, has even heard of. despite what happened with hurricane sandy, what do you see as the future of radio? >> is radio dead? they have been saying that since at least 1950. i have about a million listeners on my boutique radio show. that is compared to colbert's 3 million. the morning edition has 30 million listeners. it has begun to level of dust in the last couple of years. during the time when all other mainstream media was plummeting, npr was just moving up, up, up. npr the network has had some

trouble shifting to digital, although they have done a good job in recent years, because they have member stations. the numbers tell a different story from your students. it is true that we don't have the youngest audience in the world, but apparently we have something like 20% of every age group. however, there is going to be a migration. i think an enormous number of people in new york listen on podcast. that is where the younger

audience seems to be coming from. they have not figured out how to count them in the ratings, so they do not show up. >> you mentioned that you want people to subscribe on itunes. >> we offer more material on the podcast frequently. we want people to get comfortable, to fit us into their schedule, rather than to subscribe to our schedule. if it shows up on their ipod, they will be more likely to listen to it than if they slept through one of the broadcast. we understand that our schedule is growing increasingly irrelevant. our show is produced and goes out on a satellite on a friday

night. it is on our website on friday night. the pressure is on friday night. by the time it gets to sunday, we have worked very hard to make sure nothing goes out of date. i would prefer people to get it hot off the presses. we plan to offer more material on podcast. there is a lot of competition out there, right? a more questions? do you want to know what nina totenberg is really like? i have not added to the person is probably 1991. i remember that i was allowed two edits.

if you are going to ask me to do that, i might as well just throw it out and start all over again. i love you, nina. you are brilliantly talented. >> what is the difference in your mind between journalism and the media or the press, if any? >> journalism is what you do, and the media and the press are where you do it. journalism is like cooking and the media, whatever medium you choose, is like the restaurant. it is how you serve it up. what you do changes, depending on what medium you produce it

for. some media are much better suited to different kinds of journalism. >> with the medium of the internet and social media, the role of journalism in regard to bloggers and blogs, how reliable can they be? >> i see your point. i believe, and this is my definition, that journalism is something you do according to a set of standards and with a particular focus in mind. you can convey really good information for any number of people, but a lot of people who were covering the arab spring were providing vital, important information, because they wanted the world to know, because in just this was happening before their eyes. i am not in any way impugning their information.

in egypt, the mainstream media did a lousy job for decades before and up through the covering of tahrir square. it was bloggers and activists that offered a true picture of what was going on. it has to do with motivation and a set of standards. if you are doing journalism, you want to be accurate and fair. if you are doing propaganda, or activism, being accurate and fair could be part of it or not part of it, but you are doing because you want to assess the events in a very real way. i don't pretend that journalists don't want to have any impact. why would you devote your life to something that is irrelevant in the way the world works? it is fussy. i feel like i was not as clear as i should have been. i need to formulate that a little better. >> i am a fordham graduate and now i work in publishing.

my question is, in the beginning of the q&a, you mentioned that your advice to young people was to find out what you are passionate about, go out and be an expert, and then write about that. i wonder how that relates to what you do, that if there is a

niche in the media that you particularly enjoy reporting about. is there one interview you did that stands out as your favorite? >> i was happy with our first interview last week. that is the one that is in my mind right now. the green revolution, people took to the streets in iran and a woman was tragically shot and killed. the video of her death went all around the world and became a symbol of revolution. it was a tremendous, mobilizing force. the world media wanted to put a face to this woman we saw dying from a distance. they picked the picture of her

facebook page -- someone who looked a lot like her. the experience, she tried to correct it and was ignored by cnn and voice of america. every news outlet around the world published the picture. the revolutionaries accused per of trying to steal the symbol of their darling, their hero, a person that was doing so much to mobilize the revolution. then the iranian government came in and said i want you to say that you are still alive and that this never happened and that you would never do that. we will probably charge you with treason and kill you. she talks about how she had to live with the other in her mind. it is always with her. it is not humble, but there's no point in having people in and then talking through it. we got through in a way that any listener could understand. every time i feel that i can take a stranger and make them familiar to the listener, i am really proud of that interview. i wish we had more individuals on the show unless discussion of trends and policies and lawsuits. everything that goes through the media, i have to have very clear at stake so the program does not become a boring, specialist program.

people understand why these issues are important, and some of them are really hard to tell. i loved doing an interview last year about this big media conference where during one part of it, everybody there was to write what coverage issue they wanted to talk about. one of them was, how should we cover alien invasion at the end of the world? do we have to talk to the aliens, or is it a case where we should just -- really this kind of thing. it was like covering 9/11. don't you have to understand who your opponent is? it was really fun. it made it really clear as a kind of metaphor for the conundrums that media faces.

>> you have spoken eloquently about diversity and freedom, opening up new platforms, and yet at the same time, we are facing a tragic situation where more and more journalists are being killed, and often by governments that they are reporting on. i just wonder if you can comment on why there is a corresponding terrorism directed against journalist? >> the committee to protect journalists has done studies on this. what they have found is that the most dangerous time for any journalism enterprise is when democracy is being fought or redefault over or is emerging. five years ago, the place where the fewest journalists were ever killed was burma. there was not really any journalism. interestingly, a lot of the journalists that ended up on the committee to protect journalists are killed by organized crime. cases that are not being pursued by the government. this is serving true in russia and mexico. deals have been cut in the case of russia, or the system of justice is struggling to be effective, as in the case of mexico and russia. there tons of deaths in iraq. struggling democracy, war. there was a time when wearing a t-shirt or a press credential would give you a status, that would enable you -- we have a friend who covered the trouble in northern ireland. he would run from one side to the other and know that both of them wanted to get their stories out, and that he would always be protected. when you don't care about getting your story out or when you can get it out a different way, then you have no need for a western press that may not provide the narrative that you want them to. i spoke to reporters who said the big change they found was the attitude that it just did not matter. it was chaos. the drug barons that kill people in mexico just don't care.

in places where journalists think they might have a chance to report something, but there are no structures to report them, no justice system or police to protect them, you will find many more dead journalists. this is a world in which there are a multitude of struggling democracies. >> we also have the example of wikileaks. i wonder if you can talk about your feelings about julian assange and the information coming out about how the u.s. government, despite president obama's liberal policies, has been one of the harshest administrations toward whistle- blowers. >> this is interesting. it is certainly true that the obama administration has been among the harshest on an external whistle-blowers. however, the obama administration has been -- especially this new administration which managed to cram through a whistle-blower protection act and expand it for government whistleblowers, is offering protections they have not had for decades. so he wants them, whistle- blowers, to be able to work without retaliation within the system. he is very much opposed to information being released willy-nilly by people inside that just ended all over the world. we interviewed assange right after the wikileaks issue, he believes that all information should be there, regardless of the possibility of innocent victims. he is a person who believes that, no matter what the consequences are, the information should be out there. a lot of the wikileaks stuff was pretty niggly stuff, people having affairs or whatever. some of it was big stuff, for sure.

some of it was important stuff.

the stuff that made a difference when people knew about it was when he partnered with a guardian, a bunch of other newspapers, the new york times, and had them vet and do stories on the material that he provided rather than just document things that don't seem

to serve any purpose.

the other is an entirely separate issue. the government behaved inexplicably, or the marines behaved inexplicably in removing saddam's clothing and treating him like some sort of feral child raised by wolves or something.

i would say it was cruel and unusual treatment of bradley manning, whatever his verdict turns out to be. that was, i cannot understand it, and i do not know why that happened. i think it was marine procedure rather than government edict. >> sir? >> my name is michael chaplin. i am a former student of prof. rose. i am wondering if that changed how you reported. >> yes, it was kind of a gauntlet thrown down by ira glass, who came on and said, "npr is not defending itself against this canard. it is just not true. why do you not find out?"

we went through. we had a lot of people who were critical of npr but were listeners. most people who criticized it had never heard it. it was just a word on fox news. they never listen to it. we got several listeners who were not supporters. they liked the content, but they were very biased, so we took apart their anecdotal experiences, and we examined them closely for some clues, and then we did some quantitative stuff based on pew and other research outlets who had attempted to evaluate media, and ira said it changed the way that he was reporting, but i

cannot say it changed mine. i know that will endear me to all of our critics, but we try to disclose exactly who we are in a way that npr as a general rule does not. they like their hosts to be uninflected in their presentation, and we made a conscious choice, bob and i did, that if we were going to criticize people for not disclosing things, then we would try to be open books, and even as open books, we would allow ourselves to be corrected and be wrong on the air, especially when we thought it was instructive. if i say a wrong number, and he says, "actually, it is 24," and i had said 22.

that kind of correction is useful. illustrative mistakes we will leave on the air. like the one you mentioned with sununu. we will let people accept us on the terms that we provide. we are honest. i think, and this is a slight digression, but i really do think it does come back to your question. you mentioned walter cronkite. back in the 1970's, there was some poll where he was voted the most trusted man in america. there was a similar poll done of people on the internet, and the most trusted man in america was jon stewart, so the question is why, and i think it is because he is an open book.

it is no longer -- it no longer pertains to be some person speaking from some great cloud- like fortress down to the people below. the playing field has been leveled, whether me and the media like it or not, so it does not change substantially how i would report, because i have always tried to apply fairness and balance to our discussion, and i have never tried to pretend that i do not have an opinion about it. >> is there any journalism on television that follows a similar kind of approach to what you are doing? because the cable networks, msnbc, you know what you are watching is going to be -- of course, they do not do much reporting. it is all talking heads. fox does not do much reporting. it is all talking heads, but then there are the problems that cnn is facing.

they do journalism, and they are in big trouble. >> they have not done journalism in a long time, at least not the domestic cnn. the international cnn is quite good. the domestic cnn has really gone for a lot of bells and whistles, and i cannot say that they are head and shoulders above the rest. nbc at least has the power of nbc behind it. cnn's sometimes does inspiring work. it is still very good sometimes, but, you know, it is something to do that kind of work. on broadcast? >> yes. >> the show that we get most often likened to for better or worse is "the daily show." >> which is a high honor.

>> which is a high honor, but our intent is quite different, but it is, pace-wise or with tone or something, it just reminds people of "the daily show." if you have not heard it, you are not going to be laughing out loud. >> given the fact that you are open about having the tone, did you face any issues -- well, npr is just a distribution network for you. >> they have problems with it. they have had problems with it. they are kind of used to it now. in the first few years, there would be some squirming. there would be occasional things that would create some discomfort. in all honesty, i think that the entire media landscape has shifted in a way that we do not stand out as much like we used to. npr, look.

npr is a fantastic news organization, but it has a style. it has a cadence, but it is not our style, and it is not our cadence. >> you began working there in 1988? >> 1987. i was an editor on a show, and then i was an editor on "all things considered." >> two voices on npr. can you talk about how they schooled you in that cadence? what is the npr voice speak? >> well, for one thing, you lift your soft palate. i will tell you how that sounds. now, sitting comfortably in my seat, i will say, from new york, i am brooke gladstone. if i was filling in, i would say -- [speaking in different voice]

[speaking in regular voice] you see, that is much nicer. but it requires putting air over your soft palate, and that is way too much work for me. there is, you know, i studied acting in college, and i remember my first time on the radio, i went to the university of vermont, and there was a shakespeare festival there, and i was doing commercials for the festival, and i would lift my soft palate, and i would say -- [speaking in different voice] air-conditioned and sporting its new seats, the champlain festival offers its most comfortable season ever. [laughter] [speaking in regular voice] there is also the ending phase. let me see if we have got a final sentence here. >> probably not. try the first paragraph. >> [speaking in different voice] she has co-hosted what i think is one of the most indispensable programs on the air, called appropriately enough --

[speaking in regular voice] that kind of thing. [laughter] there is a rhythm. you are going across the country, and you want to hear npr, and there it is. you can hear it right away. but, you know, even the shows that are not produced by npr. "fresh air" is produced by wnyy. these are nationally produced programs. "car guys" was produced in boston, obviously. "wait, wait, do not tell me" -- there is a certain civilized quality that happens. >> how did it happen? >> how did it happen? wow.

i think initially, npr was this hippie property that was truly alternative. it did not have a national desk. it did not have a foreign desk. they did not have a show. they did things to find out about life savers at the north pole, would you get a spark, and they did. >> you do not have to be at the north pole. >> he was at the north pole. it was ira. but slowly, it became a primary source of news, which made it less quirky, but it also maintained the ability to go longer. i know i was once at a conference, a conference of radio professionals in new orleans, and people were talking about their stories and how they were normally 50 seconds, and someone said, "we have had a real breakthrough at our station, because i get 90 seconds for my story," and i was like the last person, and my average story when i was a correspondent for npr, my average story was 7.5 minutes. lots of voices sound -- you can

slow down a little. you can write a little. you can bring people with you, and you do not have to harangue them. >> is that because of no commercials? >> well, i am sure that is part of it. you do not have to be hot, hot, hot. the sound, the way it is produced, it is not as compressed. if you put compression on a radio signal, you will have fewer -- it will be louder in the center, but you will have less of a dynamic range. this is all pretty wonky, but these are what contributed to that sound, but mostly, i think it is an intention. we are not yelling at you. you can think. i think that was not a conscious decision. it was part of how it evolved. it did not spring full grown from the head of some executive. it built larger and larger, and it brought and created an aesthetic that went with the form of information provided. >> hmm. >> that is a tough one. >> any questions? >> i want to know, brooke, if you wanted to get somebody on, and they refused. who were they? >> when jonathan klein was -- >> the head of cnn. >> have you heard that? jonathan klein was the head of cnn. he said he was going to change the esthetic of cnn, and it was going to be different, and it was going to be about storytelling, and it was going to be about important issues, and then the runaway bride story happened, and we had an interview to talk to him, and then the runaway bride story happened, and i had to deal with the runaway bride story, and it was in some ways the most hilarious interview i have ever done. he was so mad that cnn will not let anyone come on our show anymore, and fox generally will not let anybody on our show anymore, and then people who you would think would want to come on, seymour hersh would not come

on because he does not want to be edited, and a lot of people who would go on "charlie rose" would not come on our show. hersh has sometimes come on our show. you know, for a long time, he would not. a lot of people just do not want to be in my hands. i cannot understand that, but that is the way it is. yes, whole networks will not talk to us. they are less likely to talk to us -- they are more likely to turn us down than to talk to us, but somehow, we still fill the hour. any questions? >> have you tried to get someone on and they refuse to come on

and who they work? but -- who they were? >> so many people -- when jonathan klein -- have you heard that? jonathan klein was the head of cnn. he said he was going to change the static of cnn. it was going to be different and it was going to be about storytelling and was going to be about important issues. and then the runaway bride story happened. we made interview to talk to him and then the story happened and i had to deal with the runaway bride story and it was the most hilarious interview i have ever done. he was so mad that cnn won't let anybody come on our show anymore. fox will let anybody on our show anymore.

people you would think would want to come on -- seymour hersh would not come on our show because he does not want to be edited. many people who go on charlie rose don't want to come on our show. they want to discuss the history and it was great. for a long time, many people just don't want to be in my hands. i can't understand that but that's the way it is. hold networks will not talk to us. they are less likely to talk to us -- they are more likely to turn this down than to talk to us. >> the book looks fantastic. >> thank you. >> congratulations. book. >> it shows. everything i know was in that book. >>the graphics look really

fabulous. my question to you is a two-part question, which is you are so knowledgeable about the media. what do you think is the most influential media machine right now, and where do you go for what you think is the best information, the most factual information? i think that is something we are all trying to figure out for ourselves. thank you. >> well, here is the thing. what is influential for me is not influential for a whole lot of other people. you know, i live in the bubble of new york, and the bubble of bubbles of brooklyn, and the -- in the bubbliest. i think "the new york times" is very influential, but they are not that influential except for reporting. cable news actually has very few viewers, relatively speaking, but they inform the mainstream media. there is so much cross fertilization going on. there is no single --

kierkegaard hated the media and was a media critic, and one thing he objected to more than anything else was the notion that there was a public. that there is no such thing as a public, that is the invention of the media to sell papers. well, you have to sell to someone, and who do you sell to if not the public? so you create it, but the public does not exist anymore. glenn beck had so many bestsellers. ann coulter has so many best -- i know you do not need to sell a about the rapture.

these were the number-one selling books in america, and it was right over my head, and that is when i realized that there is no answer to that question. the second part of it, you know, i like the serendipity engines. i like the browser. i like slate. i love arts and letters daily. memo. stuff. times. i belong to an anthropologist listserv because i care more about neanderthal than anything. [laughter] it is very quirky in strange and i love my twitter feet. it has a lot of people, 20 times more than i do, but it is really good. >> i want to thank the

kierkegaard of our media age for her wealth of knowledge tonight. >> thank you so much. >> thank you, so much. [applause] >> and i would like to thank both of you for an entertaining and fun evening. >> let me also note that there is a book signing at the door as you leave. >> and the book is great, and i highly recommend it, and it is funny. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> coming up on "washington journal" we will take your calls on this new year's day. the house failed to vote on an agreement before last night's agreement but a deal was reached in the senate for the -- and the house will vote on that measure today. we will have liv